Wide World Of Golf: Tracking Technology

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From club fitting, to equipment, to instructional videos, technology is playing an ever increasing role in all facets of golf. Now, military technology has taken golf instruction to an entirely new level. The real question is, are you ready for it? Doug DuChateau has used all kinds of tools in teaching players about the golf swing, but the newest addition to his arsenal has got measuring the swing down to a science. The available measurements include club speed, face angle, and path of the club. "You could approximate these things pretty well, and a real trained eye could see things I think they could pick up on," says DuChateau. "But we had nowhere near this degree of specificity in the past." FlightScope was founded in 1989, and was originally used for tracking missiles by the military. Now, that technology tracks your swing - and the flight of your golf ball. "It's been designed to interpret the flight of a golf ball," says DuChateau. "So, really, a system like this is overbuilt for it's application" But that's just fine with DuChateau. With the FlightScope system, DuChateau is able to give the most accurate, instant feedback he's ever had as a golf instructor, while showing you exactly what your golf swing looks like. "It gives us a beautiful picture of exactly where the club and the club path were. Therefore, the combination of the complimentary use of video in this technology is really where I've gone with it. In addition to video review, a quick monitor adjustment shows you exactly what the swing looked like passing by you.... much like the trackman system, used on the p-g-a tour, it's the ultimate in precise feedback... "Eventually we get to a point where I think we're questioning the relevance, or at least the application of some of the measurements we're now taking," says DuChateau. But if history is any indication, golf instructors like DuChateau will find a way to push the envelope even further.